According to STATSIndiana, In 2007, Indianapolis/Marion County had an estimated population of 876,804. Of that number 232,607 were below 18 years of age, for a total of 644,197 people in Marion County/Indianapolis over 18 and thus eligible to vote. (Indiana allows felons to vote as long as they are not incarcerated).
So we have 644,197 people eligible to be registered in Marion County/Indianapolis, and 677,401 people registered. Congratulations go to Indianapolis for having 105% of its residents registered!
A statewide voter registration database unveiled two years ago helped purge hundreds of thousands of invalid voter registrations across the state from the voting records. It looks like those efforts were all in vain.
19 comments:
Well, of the 232,607 people from the unreliable 2007 numbers, were any of them 17 in 2007 and are eligible to vote this year? Also, is it possible that people might have moved to Marion County (the largest County in the state) in the past year? This simpleton math seems flawed on its face, as does the title of this particular post.
This sounds like someone trying to make nothing into something.....it must be that the McCain supporters are laying the groundwork for their excuses when they lose.
Tarr,
Since I did the "simpleton math" do you really believe that there are so many 17 year olds soon turning 18 account that that explains the 105% registration figure? Certainly you realize that there are scores and scores of adults who live in Indianapolis who are not registered. We are certainly not at 100% registration. I would be surprised if the "real" registration rate is 60% to 70%. Your comment would only make sense if you were trying to explain an error rate of a few percent...not 30% or more.
By the way, why do you think the 2007 figures which originate are based on census figures are "unreliable?"
Well, of the 232,607 people from the unreliable 2007 numbers, were any of them 17 in 2007 and are eligible to vote this year? Also, is it possible that people might have moved to Marion County (the largest County in the state) in the past year? This simpleton math seems flawed on its face, as does the title of this particular post.
Or Beth White has registered some people that live in Crown Hill, Washington Park, and Floral Park areas. Way to go Beth. You've succeeded in screwing up the election before it even happens.
But how many of those died or moved out ? It cuts both ways.
What were the registered numbers 2 years ago and or on average ? 80% ? 90% ? 110 %
Mike B.
I am glad that someone noticed how ridiculous those numbers are. When I first heard I knew there was no way there could be that many registered voters in Indianapolis because it would have to be near 100% of the voting age population. There is no way in hell that would every happen. Anybody who thinks that is possible has lost their mind. All I know is that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Picardsaf,
Of course the rolls include the names of many people who died or moved out. That was my whole point...that there are numerous people on the rolls who are registered to vote who no longer are living or who have moved and are registered somewhere else.
Indiana made a big effort to eliminate those voters who are registered at more than one address because they moved. The effort, as AI points out, has obviously failed. When you have a voter registration list filled with 40% of the names are people decease or who have moved, you open the door to the possibility of fraud.
To add to your point, Paul, there were so many names purged two years ago, it should have taken us awhile to get back to this level. The astounding increase in voter registration this year is not a good thing. We know that ACORN was quite active hear registering despite claims by the Obama folks to the contrary. I ran into registrars wearing ACORN t-shirts downtown on about 3 separate occasions. These were young people who didn't have a clue what the law requires. They were clearly paid workers and they could care less about following the law. They don't care how they get new registrants as long as they can turn in names and collect their pay.
This compares to the republican voter registration effort which was virtually nonexistent and their efforts to suppress the vote.
I am not a fan of ACORN based on what I've read, but take out areas where ACORN worked, and you still have the highest registrations in Indiana history. Whose dummying the registrations in the Republican strongholds.
As for Marion County, might it possibly be the case as well that our census data is woefully inadequate? It's not like we're doing a headcount, ya know.
there is nothing proven
you dont know how many people exist there and you dont know how many are duplicate registrations
you know nothing
Yeah, these numbers are out of wack.
Sure, ACORN has folk without a law degree trying to register voters.
But the point about dead registered voters should cause pause because it is incredibly hard to get dead voters off the roll.
What's interesting here is how it's turned toward conspiracy on election day. How will ACORN, or the Democrats, turn dead or imaginary registrations into actual sinister votes for their candidate?
There are methods I'm sure. But a much more effective method of election fraud is preventing people from registering, or voting, in the first place.
There are plenty of Republican efforts to confuse voters about the date of voting, telling them those who vote will also be subjected to checking warrants (which, whether or not someone has a warrant out for them, will make any minority anxious), and of course the numerous McCain direct marketing fliers sent to democrats as absentee ballots that had such trickery as a small box they had to mark which said "I am a legal voter",or something silly like that, which many didn't see and were therefore disqualified.
Oh, and they sent a number of them out with the wrong return address.
On the voter scare tactics, here's a couple of tell-tale links:
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/30082104.html
and
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27966-2002Dec8?language=printer
Sure, those aren't in Indiana. But to treat voter fraud as if it were the domain of ACORN or the Democratic party, or that of Obama, is simply stupid or hypocritical.
Blaming something that might just be a bureaucratic folly on the Democrats is disingenuous when you won't cover the rest of the potential voter fraud, including that coming from the Republican side, and then just paint it all as a Democratic thing.
In other words, your blatant partisanship is showing.
You might want to cover that up, because as polling suggests, the country is really fracking tired of it and worried more about their mortgages than whether you've got the latest dish.
(Oh, right, McCain has a better solution for the housing crisis, right? Sorry, can't hear it over your cherry-picking and partisan yelling. Simply can't trust you when you try to actually talk about the issues.)
After all that WIN that was SJR-7, you're really disappointing here. No, I didn't expect you to be a Democrat, I just didn't think you'd be such a partisan hack.
As a former resident of both the city and county, i had to look into this one a bit.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081007/NEWS0502/810070368/1304/LOCAL
"In the county, 677,401 voters were registered as of Monday evening; that number was expected to continue growing as last-minute registrations are entered into the system. In 2004, the county had 602,918 registered voters."
While the 105% number is a red flag, maybe its the county population estimate they're basing it on that's wrong here...it's not that hard to believe that a get out the vote campaign made for 75k more voters in the most populated part of the state, and its inner-city vs. four years ago. That's only 12% of new voters.
'there is nothing proven'
No, but there are a LOT of questions raised, and deserving of being answered. Before the election takes place.
"This compares to the republican voter registration effort which was virtually nonexistent and their efforts to suppress the vote."
If the republican voter registration effort was "virtually nonexistant" I guess they didn't send in thousands of fraudulant forms.
The only votes republicans are trying to supress are the ILLEGAL ones, from DEAD, MOVED, and NON-EXISTANT democrats or republicans.
You people need to screw your tin foil hats on tighter.
@david:
"...and of course the numerous McCain direct marketing fliers sent to democrats as absentee ballots that had such trickery as a small box they had to mark which said "I am a legal voter", or something silly like that, which many didn't see and were therefore disqualified."
On this one, you need to get your story straight. They weren't absentee ballots, they were requests for absentee ballots (handed out by the McCain campaign, and presumably filed by potential McCain voters), and they were ruled invalid by Ohio's (Democrat) Secretary of State.
Cincinnati Enquirer Story
The SofS has been later overruled by the Ohio Supreme Court.
(Not claiming Republicans are pure as the driven snow, but this one was no Republican conspiracy, and by citing it you weaken your argument. HTH!)
David, you lost me on the comment about minorities being scared of warrant checks.
IMHO, if people have warrants I'd rather they stayed home anyway.
@ old_grouch
My argument is not weakened, sir. My point was that if this blog author is so willing to cry foul, and, by association (his fav tactic is painting ACORN as not just an org for voter registration but as part of the Obama campaign) to cry conspiracy, he should be similarly as willing to cry conspiracy on the Republican side.
Now, I'm fine with recognizing the McCain requests for ballots (a small, fine, distinction, if ultimately irrelevant) as not a giant conspiracy, but my point is that if ACORN qualifies for a Democrat conspiracy, even a misdirected request toward absentee voters should fire similar synapses in the conspiracy brain.
But they don't, or at least they don't get featured here. That's my rub; cherry-picking ambiguous voter fraud activity for one party, and not the other, is flatly fraudulent if this blog author contends to be anything other than a simple partisan. In other words, be fair, or don't expect me to take your words with a rather large grain of salt, if I take them with any seriousness at all.
@jason: I'm sorry you're lost. You really, really missed the point of that sentence. What I said, which you missed, was that there exists the potential that there are voters who DON'T have warrants out for their arrests who might be intimidated with the announcement that warrants will be checked for. Why? Because they are minorities, and minorities are intimidated by the police. This is exactly why those fliers are posted; it's not to discourage a supposedly large portion of the population who vote with a warrant; it's to discourage minority voters who have traditionally been harassed by the authorities.
Try again, my friends.
Voter registration in Marion County is a non partisan activity. Also, the Election Board is bi-partisan.
Inactive voters might account for the larger than possible voter registration. These are people that haven't voted in the last few elections.
Part of this is Todd Rokita's job, too.
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